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Angola Legal interest (juros legais)

Angola Legal interest (juros legais): no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.

Angola has no legal interest rate in force: article 559 of the Civil Code requires a joint dispatch of the Ministers of Planning, Finance and Justice, and the last one — Despacho Conjunto 36/03 — fixed a rate only for the quarter April to June 2003.

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Current valuestructured — see the API
In force from—
Official sourceCódigo Civil angolano art. 559.º, as amended in 2003: legal interest, and interest stipulated without a determined rate or amount, are those 'fixados em Despacho Conjunto dos Ministros do Planeamento, das Finanças e da Justiça' (fixed by joint dispatch of the Ministers of Planning, Finance and Justice); Despacho Conjunto n.º 36/03, de 25 de Abril de 2003, set the rate by a quarterly formula based on the Luanda consumer price index and the monetary programme's inflation target and determined that 'for legal interest relating to the quarter April-June 2003, the rate is 75% per year' — no further dispatch has been issued
Last verified2026-08-10
Verificationsecondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access).
Angola publishes no free official text of Despacho Conjunto 36/03 or of the consolidated Civil Code; the wording of article 559, the content and one-quarter scope of the dispatch, and the Luanda Provincial Court decision are taken from an Angolan advocate's published account and a law-firm analysis rather than from the Diário da República.
Provenancesource fingerprint

What this value means

REFUSAL — the instrument that is supposed to carry the number has lapsed and has never been replaced. What exists: (1) Article 559 of the Civil Code makes the legal rate a matter for a JOINT DISPATCH of three ministries (Planning, Finance, Justice) — no central-bank linkage, no automatic indexation. (2) The only dispatch ever issued under that article, Despacho Conjunto 36/03 of 25 April 2003, set 75% per year and by its own wording applied to the quarter April-June 2003; its quarterly updating formula was never operated again. Anyone quoting 75% for Angola today is quoting a rate fixed for one quarter of 2003 to cope with kwanza depreciation of that era. (3) Because there is no rate in force, Angolan courts fix one case by case: the Provincial Court of Luanda (Civil and Administrative Section, proc. 0985/09-B, March 2013) held that Despacho 36/03 established only a temporary rule no longer in force and applied 10% per year, derived from the average rates charged by commercial banks operating in Angola. (4) Bank lending and default rates were deregulated in 1999 (BNA Aviso 7/99 replacing Aviso 3/98) and are freely negotiated, subject to sector-specific BNA conduct rules; the BNA's policy rate (taxa BNA) is a monetary-policy instrument and is NOT the civil legal rate. (5) The gap is acknowledged in Angola: a formal enquiry addressed to the three ministries on 19 June 2023 asking how the legal rate is now determined went unanswered for more than twelve months. Contract rates therefore govern in practice, and where none was agreed the rate is whatever the court determines.

Get it programmatically

curl https://afriref.dev/v1/ao/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://afriref.dev/v1/ao/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/ao/statutory-interest

Other Angola series: Taxa BNA (BNA policy rate) · IVA taxa geral (standard VAT rate) · VAT registration threshold · Salário Mínimo Nacional (SMN) · Feriados nacionais · CPI inflation (year-on-year, national) · Imposto Industrial · Withholding tax rates · IRT · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Benin · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Cameroon · Central African Republic · all 34